


The Call

by tumbleweed (zel), zel



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Bosmer female, Dark Brotherhood - Freeform, Elder Scrolls Lore, Multi, Thalmor, The Companions - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zel/pseuds/tumbleweed, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zel/pseuds/zel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik the farm boy dreams of adventure.. and wakes one night to find the bloody black mare with the empty saddle. What happened to them? Who was hunting her rider? Erik thought he could protect the girl. He just wanted to be a hero. He just knew he was meant to be someone greater...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Erik dreams of glory and the lands of the valiant dead, a land of light and summer, where no one shivered, where no one went hungry. His heart pulls toward that land, toward that place, where you battered frothing tankards of neverending drink in neverending toasts to the honor and valor of your brothers in arms. And you stood with your fathers, and your fathers' fathers, in a line that went back to the beginning.

The boy dreams of Sovngarde and wakes to the sound of chickens cackling, cocks crowing. He wakes in his bed of straw in the lodging house opened by his father after the war with the elves.

Warm fire. Pheasant and hare hanging for the ready. Tables set and waiting. Outside the plots and fields growing steady. The occasional traveler and wagonneer on the way to the city. Mralki likes to say they get by on heads of guests and heads of cabbage. This quiet life is his father's dream, but not Erik's.

Gathering eggs out of straw, hoeing stones out of furrows, pulling weeds from the plots, Erik saves away his coin and thinks of the armor that he'll wear someday. Some spikes on the shoulders. Sharp angles. Skulls, maybe. Skulls would get the message clear across, and anyhow, it might take the attention away from the furious red of his hair.

His father wouldn't train him in the sword, but the boy has a strong back and a good arm with the ax. He's helped out with the firewood these past years.

Mralki's growing older, him and the other veterans who settled here. On some evenings at the inn after work, they drink and they talk about the old days, laughing after some stories, silent after others.

In a thick and halting voice, Savard once told how they fought a justicar and his soldiers through the Ayleid ruin Nenalata. His whole face contorted with emotion as he asked his comrades to remember those they left there in that tomb.

The Frostfruit Inn was quiet but for the howling wind against the timbers that night. Then you heard the clank of armor as a traveler came to his feet.

"My friend, I do not mean to listen in on you, but only a man without a heart or soul could go unmoved by your story. I tell you this-- your brothers in arms do not lie in the wreck of some elven dungeon far from home. They drink in Sovngarde, and I drink to them."

So saying, the man looked Savard in the eye, and he looked then into the eyes of all the men who had fought in the war against the elves. Erik held his breath, and he held his broom, having been tasked by his father to do the sweeping.

The old veterans stood from their tables, and the friends of the traveler stood also. It was then that Erik noticed beneath their cloaks that they wore the wolf armor of the Companions, and Erik noticed also the man who spoke to them was twinned with a man at the table.

Erik remembered the toast that followed for the rest of his days.

Let me be strong enough, Erik prayed at night thereafter. Let me be good enough. And if I can't be strong or good enough, then give me the courage or foolishness to make my mark on this world.

...

"I had a dream about you," Sissel told him one morning as they gathered eggs. "You were in my dream, Erik!"

"What was I doing in the dream? Not picking eggs, I hope." Erik smiled. Watch yourself-- don't reach under Brunhilda, she'll peck you. Let me do it."

The child shook her mousy head of hair and said, "Oh no, no, you were.. it was all foggy."

Erik didn't like to rob the nest out from under a hen, but the other ladies weren't so accomplished this morning and well.. Brunhilda was no lady. Like as not, the old biddy didn't want to budge her big fat body and so she sat puffed and warm on her nest, ready to cluck and peck her false outrage. If Reldith were to appear with old heels of bread to throw out, however, that greedy hen would abandon her nest without a second thought.

"It’s hard to remember my dreams, too," he said, handing the child a warm brown egg.

"No, that's not what I meant," Sissel replied, taking the egg in both hands and turning it over, studying it. "It was foggy. There was fog and you were walking in it and your brother was there." The little girl's voice came out with a matter of factness that seemed to convince herself by the end of it, and she nodded. She placed Brunhilda's egg neatly in with the few others in her basket. "You had a brother."

Erik braved another round of pecking from Brunhilda, who had decided to take offense. "A brother, eh? Did he have red hair too?" He hoped they would get enough eggs for the pannkakor he wanted to make, what with a dash of cream and some sour berry jam.

"No, he didn't have red hair, he had a red face and everything, it was all red because he didn't have skin."

Erik gave the girl a look, then.

Sissel smiled. "He was all bloody and he talked.. like.. this."

"That's a terrible dream, Sissel," he said quietly. After he handed off an egg to her, he gave her little shoulder a squeeze. "That sounds really scary.. were you scared?"

"Nope."

Erik still had his hand on her shoulder. "What did he say. I mean, this man in your dream."

"He said your name.. and he said he came to find you."

...

"I'm worried about Sissel," Erik told his father, later, as he dug around in the cupboards. "I mean, I know, it's probably nothing, but.. "

Mralki shrugged. "It doesn't concern you," he said.

Erik crouched, hands on thighs, looking through the cookware for his three-legged frying pan. "I worry about that one.”

"Brothers pick on brothers, and sisters pick on sisters. It's just that you didn't have any siblings.. you don't know how they squabble, my boy. The girls especially."

"Huh?" Erik peered up at his father. "No. I don't mean Sissel getting bullied by her sister.. well. Maybe that too, that's not right to let bullies get their way, of course.. " the awkward hero in Erik floundered for something better to say. "I mean, you know how she has dreams?"

The innkeeper gave a sigh of arid patience. "Girls do have dreams-- it has been known to happen."

"I can't find my frying pan."

"I moved it. Look in the left, ah there you are."

"I meant that Sissel told me this morning that she had a very morbid dream, about.. a man with all his skin cut off."

"I don't doubt she dreamed such a thing. Most like she saw you butcher that goat for Rorik's table. Sometimes you see bad things.. and dream them later." Mralki shook his head. "I'm very busy, Erik, I've got to get the corner room ready. Please help yourself to the sour berry jam."

...

"… and it isn't the first time she's had a weird dream like that," Erik said with a sigh. "Do you think I should talk to Lemkil? I'm going to talk to Lemkil."

Jouane Manette shook his head. The old Breton always seemed to know when Erik had in mind to make his specialty. He had come by earlier for a talk and for the prospect of delicious eggy pan cakes. "Your heart's in the right place, boy," he said, "but you'd best let me handle the matter."

Erik gave a last stir of the mixing bowl, and then tapped the spoon lightly on the rim. Lightly. The chipped blue bowl had been part of Gran's wedding gift, and the chip came from Erik not knowing his own strength. He still felt bad about that.

"In fact," the healer continued, "Sissel told me about her dream this morning and I think I know what you're talking about."

"You do?"

Jouane smirked. "She didn't seem troubled by it, in any measure. Curious, rather-- she skipped up to me and asked how you put the skin back on a man after it's all been scraped off."

As he poured out the batter for his famous pannkakor, Erik said, "Well.. how do you, I guess?"

"I've seen it done twice, well. And I've done it once, as best I could. Do you want me to tell you the real answer, while you're making breakfast?"

"Uh, well, if you could just say--"

"'Magic'?"

"If you could just say 'magic', I'll trust your word." Erik gave a self-deprecating smile. "Some adventurer I am, heh! I don't want to hear about skin flaying.. "

The old breton mage chuckled softly. "Not when we're going to eat eggy pan cakes in a moment." He glanced throughout the inn’s main hall, and then he said, quietly, “I believe that Sissel has the gift. A little spark. She has dreamed things that later came to pass.. or dreamed a dream that had a deeper truth in it. She’s young, but she sees far.”

Erik nodded, glad to talk of something so important, as if he were drawn into some conspiracy. “I always thought so. She seemed to have it, like Gran. Do you think you’ll train her? To control it?”

Jouane considered. “I don’t know,” he replied. “It’s.. ultimately, it isn’t my decision. In Wayrest the matter of magic is different.”

“The bards make it sound like everyone levitates their way to some great party in the sky, full of talking animals and conjured ghosts.”

“Ah yes, well, old Jouane hasn’t been to one of those parties in many a year,” the old Breton said with a smile. “Your land is different, is all I mean to say. It isn’t my decision to train the girl.. but I help her from time to time.”

“You don’t think it frightens her?”

“Not yet, no,” Jouane replied. “It seems as second nature."

Erik thought it over. "I suppose if you were born with the gift.. you wouldn't know anything different."

The old mage nodded. "I wouldn't worry. In truth, when I spoke to her this morning, she seemed more curious of you.” 

Erik busied himself with the fry pan, but he felt it now— he felt this was the moment. “I think I know the meaning of her dream,” he said.

The old mage was studying him when he looked up. "By all means," he said. "You first." He smiled kindly, mostly in the eyes, with all the crinkles and creases around the corners. Jouane had always been something of the farmstead grandfather to all the children growing up.

Encouraged, Erik took a breath and said: "I think if there's anything to it.. I think the man in the dream is my brother in arms, and I think the fog in the dream was the mist of Sovngarde. The blood was from his wounds in battle. I think-- I think it means I will become a warrior… and that is my destiny."

When Jouane said nothing right yet, Erik added, "I mean, eventually, that is."

The batter was starting to stick in the pan, and Erik brought it off the fire for a moment. "Well, what do you think?"

"I'm inclined to agree with you," Jouane replied, slowly and thoughtfully, like how Reldith's shaggy cow chewed a mouthful of grass. There seemed to be something more.

"And?"

"I know you must be frustrated. You feel a calling.. and yet there is another that holds you back.”

"What do you mean?"

"The older brother you would have had.. if he hadn’t come two months early in the winter. A bad winter that year..”

Erik drew back with slow realization, and he felt his dreams of glory sour.

Jouane continued, gently, "The girl dreamed you were haunted by the bloody ghost of a man who called you brother. I take it perhaps to mean that your life has been shadowed by the burden of being your father's only living child. “

Erik set aside the frying pan to cool. “You’re right,” he muttered. “That’s.. that’s it exactly. Hells.. even a child can see it!”

“He loves you, Erik. You’re all he has. You must understand that.. but perhaps it’s time.”

His love for his father was a stone in his chest. "It makes me feel selfish,” he said on a sigh. “And I was just thinking I wanted to.. I don’t know, embark on some quest. That I was meant to.. but at the same time, who would chop the firewood? Who would cook the meals? Who would work in the garden?”

"No no no, my boy.. you should not feel selfish for wanting your own life. Young men are meant to leap at adventure. A little bit of danger like a pinch of spice. But perhaps it’s time that you should sit down with your father."

"I won't get hurt," Erik insisted. "Seriously hurt, anyway.” What he needed was a scar. “I won't do anything stupid. Nothing will happen to me."

"I've tended the deathbed of many a young man who said the same. The young think they are invincible.. "

Erik threw up his hands. "And if I stay here, nothing really will happen to me. I'll be safe, sound, boring.. no. Not even that. I could fall off a horse. I could get lost in a blizzard. I could get killed by chicken thieves some night."

Setting about to serve the pan cakes, Erik said, “Wouldn’t it be my luck to get myself killed for old Brunhilda?”

Jouane smiled. “Gallant of you, but let’s hope not. I support you, Erik.. I've always known you wanted to be an adventurer. It's no secret. I remember when you put one of those pots on your head like it was a helmet.. "

Erik smirked.

"Talk to your father, and remember-- he is a man who has lost a great deal, and he loves you. Above all, he loves you, and I know he wants you to be happy. You should tell him your plans. You.. do have a plan, don't you?"

"I'll need a name."

"You already have a name, Erik."

He smiled almost shyly. "I mean.. my mercenary name."

"I thought you meant to be an adventurer!"

"Same thing, isn’t it?”

"Most certainly not."

"I'll work on it. Anyway.. I've been saving here and there to buy armor and a weapon."

"And how goes it?"

"I still have some way to go.. unless my father won't miss that old pot for a helmet." 

...

For the remainder of the day, Erik rehearsed in his head the words he would say to his father. He needed Mralki to understand that he needed a journey into the wider world.. he needed to see more than mud and snow and their farm on the hillside. More than even Whiterun Hold.

He would be fine. He would take care of himself. He wouldn't go alone-- that was the part that Erik decided to sway his father with. He would go with other adventurers. He wouldn't go alone.

That night he prayed, as he sometimes did: to be strong enough, to be good enough.

And in the screaming of the animals, his prayers were answered-- the lowing of cattle, the bleat of goats, the stomping and pounding of Lord Rorik's horses as they drove their hooves full force into the panels of their shelter.


	2. Chapter 2

Mralki's eyes flung open, and he reached across the bed for an absent wife. She had passed years ago.

Erik.

He would go to the commotion.

Swinging his stiff leg over the side of the bed, Mralki pulled on his breeches and hobbled across his room.

"Back to bed," he barked as he went to the counter. Just as he thought, his son was hopping about, trying to squeeze and squirm his feet into his boots.

"But father--"

Mralki pointed, said "No!" and wished the guests were in their rooms rather than in the audience, but damn it-- if it was brigands he had no business tromping out into the dark. He had no idea how to handle them.

Men getting desperate in these times. Maybe they'd only snatch a chicken or two, run off, and that be the end of it.

Drawing out his old warhammer from its display, Mralki went to bar the doors with it. "Safer here than out," he said, "if any of you wish to go out, I'll not keep you, but it's your choice and one made quickly. I'll bar her up soon."

The two guests retreated back into their rooms, a slim Breton woman with apprehensive eyes, and an older man of Colovian extraction.

For a moment, just a moment, Mralki was tempted to take the warhammer and head outside. Yet it was dark. How would he hold a lantern or a torch. Who else would be out? Would it be only him standing there in his night shirt and breeches against some thief with a drawn-back bow? A raider? A monster?

The animals were shrieking. Hard to tell what was happening. Voices, maybe, but the sound of the farmstead was foremost.

Mralki tested the door, gave it a rattle, and then went to Erik's room.

He found it empty with an open window shutter.

...

Some part of Mralki knew that the horse was like no other horse. Some part of him knew right away, deep in his marrow-- he knew it in the screaming of the animals, the eye-rolling horror of Rorik's own mounts. No one but the foolish two-legged tried to approach it.

Mralki first saw the beast in the light thrown from torches. Two guardsmen and a farmhand were trying to hold the horse back with waving torches. It reared and kicked, riderless, and injured. Blood streaked its flanks and legs.

"Here he comes! Here he comes again!"

"Way! Shoo!"

"Grab his reins!"

The horse snarled.

"Watch the teeth!"

"You're scaring her!" Mralki heard his son's voice. "Stop with the torches!"

Mralki heard his son making some complaint, and then he saw Erik pushing past the guardsmen with torches and standing there in the cobblestone road in boots and breeches, naught else.

"Erik," Mralki hissed, "come back here!" He had to bite back a shout. Didn't want to frighten the animal any more than it was-- if it was frightened at all.

No.

He saw in the tight controlled movements that there was something more intense about the horse. The way its eyes seemed to flash in the dark, searching, hunting.

"Erik.. " the father's voice was but a whisper.

The four hooves were on the ground now, and the horse had its head bent low between its legs. Its breath was a deep malevolent snorting through its nostrils.

His son, his idiot son, was walking slowly toward the animal, boot by boot, with a soft reassuring sound. His idiot son with the large and caring heart.

"Someone fletched you with arrows," Erik breathed. "You poor thing, you poor girl. I know you're hurting."

One of the guards said, "I think it's working, look."

"Shhh. Let me bring you inside.. no one will hurt you anymore tonight."

Mralki's terror mixed with a certain twinge of pride. The boy had a kindness and a way with animals that few could match. Perhaps he could bring this under control.

As Erik spoke to it in gentle tones, the horse tossed its head, snorted, pawed, and seemed to give a last irritated dance from side to side. Its ears splayed back and forth.

In their shelters and in their fence yards, the domestic animals began to quiet. Chickens clucked softly in continual alarm. Horses stamped and whinnied. The goats were in a crush in the corner of the pen. The shaggy cattle pressed and pushed against each other.

Having had time to dress for the cold, more people were emerging from their homes.

Erik held out his big hand, slow and steady, and the horse took his scent. Mralki had the fear that the animal would bite. Erik couldn't work if he lost his fingers..

"I'll be your friend," Erik said softly. "You look like you need a friend, don’t you, girl?”

The horse made a sound that Mralki thought was a growl. Its ears splayed back, and it took an unsteady step forward. By the light of the torches, he could see now the extent of the injury that the animal had suffered. Two arrows sticking from its flank. Scrapes and cuts. Bleeding forelegs.

There was something flopped in the left stirrup.

When the horse drew forward, Erik welcomed her, and the farmsteaders watched as he calmed and soothed her. His firm but gentle voice seemed to have a pacifying effect on those standing by, and now Rorikstead began to talk amongst itself what to do with the riderless horse.

It became apparent then that the guards had rushed out to deal with the situation just as it happened-- one of them was dressed for duty, while the other, somewhat starkly, was not. "Kjeld, you go put on something more than that, then we will make a search to see if the rider is nearby. Not too far, not in this dark."

Erik stroked the horse's face. Then he removed the object from the stirrup. It was a boot.

A very small boot.

What happened next seemed to happen slow and yet swift-- all at once.

The horse swerved away with a roar. Its shoeless hooves kicked up. Its red eyes flashed. Its teeth looked like fangs to Mralki, and he thought of another horse he had seen long ago, a monster in the night after Nenalata, a black rider on a black horse some thirty years ago in Bravil.

Erik's arm twisted in the reins.

In those fleeting seconds, Mralki watched the demon horse drag his son across the cobblestones. The innkeeper screamed as his son screamed in pain, and then Erik kicked, twisted, jumped-- and got a foot into the stirrup.

The demon reared up, and Erik pulled its mane. Then it ran, and Mralki saw his son vanish into night.


	3. Chapter 3

Erik fought for control of the horse, but her will was stronger. His heart thudded in his chest.

Horses were prey animals. He told himself she ran because she was frightened, and that she would tire soon. He knew she had to be exhausted, as injured as she was. She had to stop running.

The night flew by. The horse carried him hurtling down the cobblestones, and then he gripped her with all his might when she suddenly changed course.

Thin branches scraped his face and chest as the horse bounded off the path and down a hill. Woken in the night, Erik hadn't dressed as he should, and the icy air went straight to his bones.

The black mare leveled out in a glade, and then all of a sudden, she stopped, pulling up short with a scream.

Erik's numb fingers lost the reins, and the jostled momentum took him tumbling from horseback.

For a moment, all he knew was pain. He curled on his side and it took everything he had to breathe. Then the sensation of cold came to him, and he groaned, getting up on his knees. Red hair fell across his face, and he looked up through it at his new surroundings.

In the silver light of a full moon, Erik saw a dark shape in the roots of a barren tree. A human form bundled with a black cloak. A bow lay nearby, and a knapsack.

The horse screamed a final time and the eerie woods threw back its voice. In his state of fear and confusion, Erik thought he saw a red flash from the horse's eyes. Its teeth looked sharp when the lips went back.

"H-hello?" Erik groaned. His voice came out much weaker than he intended. It hurt to strain out any sound. His chest throbbed, and the pain came hot and cold at once. "Hello? Is this your.. your horse?"

The shape did not move.

Erik remembered the boot he pulled out of the stirrup, how small the boot had been in his hand.

When he crawled over to the shape by the tree, the first thing he noticed was the naked left foot.

The body sagged when he untangled the cloak from the head, and he drew ratty fabric away from a girl's face. An elf! Her eyes were dark slits, barely opened. Her mouth was slack.

Fears for his own injury were gone in a moment. He had to help her. She needed him.

"I can help you," Erik told her. "I can help you, you'll be all right.. I'll take you back with me."

He went to shake her gently. His big hand dwarfed her shoulder. Her almond-shaped eyes squeezed shut, and then she seemed to curl in on herself.

Erik moved her arm as carefully as he could, to have a look at her injuries. Her arm came away black with blood, and her hand loosened from a fist.

Something fell from between her fingers. A black stone on a leather cord.

Only then did her eyes fly open.

"No," she gasped. "Mine."

"It's all right, I want to help you," he said. "We have a healer in the village-- please, I'm going to take you back with me."

She made a senseless moan of a sound, and her bootless foot pressed into the ground, as though she were trying to put herself in a position to stand. She couldn't.

Erik took the necklace and slipped it into his pocket. "There," he said, "it's safe, I'll gather all of your things-- don't worry. Trust me. You can trust me."

"Lucien," the elf girl whispered. "Please.. "

"Erik. My name is Erik. I'm a friend."

...

The horse gave him no trouble on return. The girl sat against his chest like a sack of flour. He had gathered up her knapsack and her bow, which slapped awkwardly against the horse's barrel from time to time. Erik had no idea how to carry it a better way.

The elf girl slipped in and out of consciousness, talking to him in a thick voice, thinking he was someone different.

A mounted guard from Whiterun Hold found him on the road and spurred ahead to tell the village.

Mralki pushed ahead of everyone to be the first to see his son, and Erik's heart dropped. His father’s face was a ruin.

“I’m all right,” Erik said. “It’s only some bruises. The girl needs help!”

Reldith followed them into the inn and before Mralki could protest, they took the girl into the corner room he had lately prepared. Jouane closed the door behind them, and the last thing Erik heard was, “If only the horse didn’t run off with her boot.. she might lose some toes out of this."

Erik sagged by the fire. Some of the village folk were pressing in now to know what happened, what did he see, but Mralki shooed them away. In a voice that cracked, he told them to see to their own business and get back to their homes.

His father returned after a moment, half-hobbling up to him. He draped a blanket over Erik, like he did when Erik had been a smaller boy.. with shoulders not nearly so wide. They hugged as best he could manage.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” Mralki said in a voice that trembled, then turned to anger. “That damn monster taking you away!”

"She was taking me to her rider," Erik said. "I didn't know what to think at first.. but that's a smart horse." He twisted around toward the door. “The horse! We’ve got to get the arrows out of her.”

"I don't want you going near it. I don’t trust it."

"It's.. maybe it's an elf horse. Their horses are different." Erik leaned off the bench, trying to get to his feet. He shrugged off the blanket. "We have to help her. She's been hurt."

"No, Erik."

"But father--"

Mralki shook his head. "No. That horse won't live."

"She took me there and back, all with two arrows in her flank. I have to try. She did all that for her rider.. I can't punish her loyalty by killing her."

Mralki tightened his lips into a bloodless line. "We'll discuss it in the morning," he said.

"Please--"

"No! There's nothing more you can do now. Go to bed."

...

Exhausted and aching, Erik crawled into his furs and struggled for a position that hurt less to breathe. His heart and mind raced, and once or twice he jerked awake just as he began to drop off into sleep. He thought himself still on horseback, and through blurry dreams he rode that black mare into sightless fog that seemed to go forever.

He woke to someone calling his name.

...

"I don't know how she could have got out,” Mralki was saying to the healer, "not in this state.. "

Erik was taken aback. She must not know where she was. It was safe here. They wanted to help. For a moment he thought of the little elf maid that barely stood chest high on him, with her sweet face and curvy body, who was hurt and scared and all by herself.

“She’ll have gone to the horse,” he said.

Mralki shook his head. “I don’t want you near that animal, Erik.”

Jouane approached him with his traveling cloak over his arm. “Mralki,” he said, “That horse won’t be going anywhere, even if it lived through the night. I’ll need help, and Erik’s the best hand in the stables. Please.”

“Please, father. The girl seemed very confused on where she was.”

The innkeeper sighed. “I’ve always said we pride ourselves on hospitality,” he muttered. “I hope I don’t live to regret this.”

...

When the barn doors opened, the bleak overcast light filtered in weakly and fell across the body of the black horse laying in the straw. The elf moved her hands slowly over the horse’s belly, her face pressed into its hide. Her tangled hair fell across her back. Hearing their entry, she lifted her head, and her mournful black eyes regarded them. Dark deerlike eyes.

“You were real,” she said softly, slumping back on her big bottomed seat. She had an ample bosom held tight in bandages, which Erik could still glimpse through the one of Reldith's old night shirts.

Erik took in her pathetic slouch and the sad and soulful look on her face. His heart felt as if it were squeezed. “I’m Erik,” he said. “This is Jouane, our healer. You’re in Rorikstead, and you’ll be safe here.”

Her head dipped and she slowly stroked the mare. The animal looked near death, breathing shallowly in the straw. “I’ll need help taking the arrows out,” the elf girl said. “She won’t bite. She’ll be good.”

Jouane and Erik shared a look, and in the old breton’s eyes, Erik saw his own doubt reflected there. The trusty steed was done for.

“We’ll try our best, young miss,” Jouane replied. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t look good.”

The elf girl’s lip trembled. Her mouth was like a peach. “She won’t bite, I promise.”

It took nearly two hours. The barbs of the arrows bit deep. One of the shafts broke in half. Blood welled over the horse’s flank and their hands were black with it.

In the worst moments, the mare lifted her neck off the straw and screamed a sound that chilled Erik’s bones. The animal never bit or moved, though—they were afraid she might try to stand or kick, but she never did. The girl said the horse’s name was Shadow.

The girl petted the mare throughout, stroking her neck and her shoulders, and even drawing one of the forelegs up into a hug. Her voice seemed to have a calming effect on the beast. Erik had heard that the wood elves claimed special friendship with four footed things.

When it was over, the mare panted in the hay. Loose bits of straw stuck to the foam at the corners of her mouth. Jouane salved the horse’s injury as best he could, warmed it with his magic, and Erik wrapped a clean bandage. Neither of them were certain what would come of it. The arrows had cruel points on them, intricate metal. Erik had never seen such an arrowhead. It must have taken a man a month to style every groove and swirl.

But Jouane seemed to know this design. The old mage held the dark bloody point in the gray light. “What happened to you, girl?”

“I will leave tonight,” the girl told him. She spoke soft and low, but there was a firmness in it. “But I will remember your kindness and repay you when I can. You'll have no more trouble from me."

Erik leaned back on his heels and then grunted softly from the ache in his side. “You don’t have to go,” he said. “How will you get anywhere?”

Jouane turned the point over in the light, and then he looked upon the girl. “This is elven make. Who was hunting you?”


	4. Chapter 4

“So many people died in the riots in Bravil,” Filbagail told them all in the warmth of the inn. “Not everyone in the city guard wanted to fight. Not against their own folk. So the captain ordered his men to cut down the ones who wouldn’t lift a sword. The Thalmor fanned the flames. They loved it.”

Rorik himself had come down to hear what the wood elf had to say. She looked shaken and innocent, with her huge dark soft deer eyes and open face. Her hair was the color of her skin, dark and tawny, with a coppery sheen. She had rather a big bottom, cushioned on it where she sat on a bench, one leg drawn up. She was swaddled in bandages round the middle and on her foot.

“I was working in the castle,” Filbagail continued, her voice growing thick. “The count made me serve up banquets while the city burned. He made me cook up exotic animals from every corner of the empire. Roast pahmer in diced nirnroot sauce. An entire kwama queen stuffed with her own boiled eggs. Gold-leaf powder on the wine glasses. His lordship danced like a little dog to every whim of the Thalmor. He licked their boots and fawned on them, and the Thalmor laughed in their hideous parties.. “

She took in a breath. “They laughed at him too, but he didn’t understand."

The men of the village looked among themselves. The old veterans. Even Erik, young and untested, seemed to know what they must be thinking. The memories of the war were thick in the air. Charged with it. The battle of Nenalata, the ruins in eastern Bravil County. Only Lord Rorik stared ahead. His eyes measured the little elf that slumped before the fire.

“You’ve come a long way then,” Rorik said, “from the heart of Cyrodiil.” His voice came out steady, unmoved.

Filbagail nodded. “I came up through Bruma.. I had to keep going. I.. there was trouble at the border. I was mixed up with them at Helgen, b-but I had nothing to do with the kingslayer, I swear it.”

“I’ve heard news of Helgen’s burning. They say a dragon came out of the sky.”

The elf held her bandaged hand close to her body. “These are strange times, m’lord. I saw it also… I don’t know what it means.”

“In other days I also rode here from Bravil County. You cannot tell me you took your horse over the mountains with two arrows in its flank. This is recent.” Rorik paused before he struck at the heart of the matter. "Am I to tell the jarl I harbor a fugitive?"

"Please! Aranaamo-- he was the advisor-- he, he tried to catch us outside of Bruma-- he tried to make the guards catch us! Nobody would believe me. Nobody believed me when I told them what happened at Bravil! I had to run! Aranaamo told them to look out for a chubby little elf cook on a black horse.. told them I stole a chalice from the county hall!"

The village folk began to talk all at once among themselves. Mralki himself felt the cold rush up his spine. Bravil. Bravil. The Thalmor. The appearance of the girl had stirred old memories of battle, of mists that came off Niben Bay, of gleaming ruins and horrifying magics.. that black horse. That black horse he swore he saw before.

"Please--" the elf girl was crying outright now. "I didn't steal anything! I-- I couldn't take it anymore! All those people killed in the riots! The count laughing and dancing with the Thalmor! Aranaamo didn't want me to tell anyone what I saw at the castle! _They killed my family!"_

_We fought to free Bravil County, we died to free it! men were saying in the uproar. Now the elves dance in the county hall, and the imperial lord with them!_

_If half of what she said is true!_

Erik blurted out, "You're safe here, Filbagail, no one will hurt you in our town." He knelt beside her, his huge kneeling form level with the curvy bosmer, who seized on a friendly face and sympathetic shoulder.

"They were so cruel," Filbagail protested, clutching his hand. "They were so cruel to me.. they didn't like that I didn't join in! He-- he said elves had ruled the world once, and would again. I-- I told them I was only a cook. Our family lived in Bravil forever-- we never cared who was man or mer or beast. I was only a cook."

Kjeld stood up. "Dear gods! but I'll hear no more! It's enough to boil the blood! Ay Rorik, by all that's good, this poor girl-- we ought to take her straight off to the jarl, if only he hears the _truth_! Can you believe it, the Thalmor bastards sending Cyrodiil men after her, like they were dogs! What did we die for, then? Eh? EH?"

A hearty roar went around the hall.

"I'll be gone soon as and Shadow's on the mend," the elf said, "I have nothing but herbs and spices with me now, but I'll repay your kindness, I swear it on my mother's grave."

Mralki knew the girl would be trouble, yet.. she was an innocent in all this, or so he thought then. The Thalmor were known to preach of elf supremacy, of the rightness of elf rule and the long precedent of their wicked ancestral reign-- yet from the forests of Valenwood there came blank-eyed survivors who told stories of purges and burnings and the desecration of holy glades.

Rorik sighed. The little elf with the soft eyes and big bottom was winning out, and hell-- her story could not have hit closer to home, for was not Rorikstead founded and farmed by veterans of the war against the elves? For every one of these men standing in this hall, there were the bones of five left in Bravil County so long ago..

As if sensing the weakening of his resolve, Filbagail flashed a tearful smile and added, "My-- my brother and my cousins live here in Skyrim. I need to find them. I-- I won't trouble you at all, I'll be quiet as a mouse, no one will know I'm here."

Rorik shook his head. "You may stay," he said, "but it behooves me to tell the jarl your story. No harm will come to you, if you speak the truth, and I think you do. These men and I know well the evil of the Aldmeri Dominion. Ay, indeed, these men before you fought in the Bravil campaign. These are dark times, and the Thalmor laugh while we fight ourselves. It's true you are an elf, but since my father's-father's time I have hardly heard of trouble from a little bosmer."

He looked Mralki's way before he added, "Of any serious nature," for it did not go unnoticed among some of the men-- Mralki included-- the way that Erik held the elf's hands in his big stupid paw.

Erik was grinning. "There, you see," he said, "she can stay here, can't she, Father?" He looked back, eyes huge. "Can't she?"

Mralki had no choice. Already the hall was crowded with talk and memories. "You say you're a cook, then, lass?" he said. "P'raps you might show us how they cook again in Niben Bay.. been many a year since we've had such a dish."

The little elf beamed. "Oh yes, of course, you've been so kind already," she gushed. "You've been so good to poor Shadow! I know she's made a ruckus, but she's such a good girl, she's family to me. I promise you-- no trouble at all!"

Later, Mralki knew that they should have killed her then and there. It would have taken all of them to do so. Perhaps. Perhaps it all could have been avoided. Perhaps not. The ways of the gods are beyond the ken of man and mer alike, but even so, in that crowded hall, hearing the roar of talk press in around him, seeing Lord Rorik lay his hand on that elf girl's head in welcome, Mralki thought of his son, the look on his face, and the way he gripped tight a pendant round his neck, a necklace or ornament of some kind he'd never seen before that day.


End file.
